Project Sabertooth

Chemo then the first year would anyways be hell on earth. And I didn't like the thought of losing all my hair and walking around like Kojak. So, Nope! Chemotherapy is most definitely out of the question. Might as well live like a king for a year than hopelessly sick for two! But just exactly what does one do with their remaining time, when the fuse is lit and it's burning towards the dynamite? How do you utilize your time effectively to do all the things that you had planned to do later on in life? Well, getting a full examination for any types of cancer is now scratched off of the list! “It is a hard decision to make, even for people who aren't terminally ill.” Walter interjected. “And if I was in your shoes, I would have done the same and traveled around the world till I fall over dead on some exotic beach with a caipirinha in my hand. Not go on a murdering tour like you did, even if, off the record of course, I sort of agree with what you did.” “Yeah” I said. “ It was really crazy at the end, but in the beginning it was cold, calculated and clear as ice what I should do while the fuse was still burning. But the plan came to me after that first time at the Police Station, you know, after the incident at the train station. Before that occurred I was simply sitting there....

  I suddenly realized that I've been sitting here on the train platform for hours and it was becoming darker by the minute as nighttime crept up on me. What sort of amused me as I came out of it was the fact that I was subconsciously counting all the cigarette butts lying around the platform. I looked around dazed and thought `there's over fifty butts lying around and nobody sweeps them away, except the wind'. I started to laugh silently to myself. Then the thought occurred to me that I could start smoking now, because everybody knows that it's not healthy and could kill you, and that made me laugh hysterically like some escapee from the Clinic in Weinsburg. I always liked the smell of smoke but never did more than try them once or twice before. So I stood up and went into the small shop inside the train station to get me a pack. Why not? If they kill you slowly, maybe I'll live longer! So I walked back up the stairs to the platform, opened the pack and took one out. And being a non smoker, I discovered that I had no cigarette lighter! I must have looked like a nerd because this other man was looking at me and giggling. Kind of pissed me off at the moment and I started to go over to him to give him a good lecture in the good old American “F” language. But he already had his lighter out to give me a light, so I held my temper. The wind had started to pick up, (nature sweeping all the butts down onto the train tracks!), and we both had to turn our backs to the wind to even get a decent flame from his cheap Bic lighter. And that was when I saw the Arab with the bag. If there is only one thing that I learned in my time in the Army, it's that pinging feeling one gets when seeing another acting suspiciously abnormal. The man was constantly looking around, not like he was looking for some friend, but rather the paranoid scared look of someone searching the place for any Security or Police. So in my still halfway confused state of mind about my situation, I asked the man who gave me the light what he thought about the Arab standing between the stairs coming up and the edge of the platform. Well, he looked, and then he turned back to me and got all prissy with me about being racist against the asylum refugees which were daily arriving in throngs into the country. I should have known he would react like that because when I looked down to stomp out my barely smoked cigarette, I seen the stickers and pins on his backpack. Greenpeace sticker, Green Liberal Party pin on the strap and another which the Church gives away saying; `Welcome our Refugees!' `Oh Lordy', I thought. 'This country is truly going down the drain!' As my temper flared again I walked away from the Refugee Lover and meandered slowly in the general direction of the Arab. He had already set his backpack on the platform in front of him but those schizophrenic eyes of his were turning like Radar constantly looking in the different directions that the Station Security could come from. Then I seen his hands were fidgeting with something he was holding near to his chest, and curiosity got the best of me. I started walking straight towards him and when he dropped his hand down to his side, that's when I seen his prayer beads, and I broke into a cold sweat!

  When we was just a few days into Iraq, the station commander gave his little speech about how to act around the Muslims, Hustler and Playboy magazines were to be kept out of sight, and to respect their religious beliefs, of which I anyways had no qualms. My theory is to let people believe what they want if it makes their lives bearable and, as long as they don't try to convert me! But the one thing he said which really stuck in my head was; “If you pass a man on the road and he is praying with his beads, watch your back. It's most likely a suicide bomber and your ass will be grass!” It wasn't even two days later that I seen it for myself. I had just rounded the corner of the building in time to see this guy praying with his necklace of beads. And if I had been just a little faster, I would have been crossing the street when the asshole detonated himself and taking the Humvee with him. I never figured out how all those ball bearings missed me, because the Humvee looked like a bunch of Hillbillies used it for target practice with their 10 and 12 gauge shotguns! More holes than a piece of Swiss cheese!

  Anyways, the Arab at the train station must have seen the Police which patrol the train stations all the time, coming his way and started to grab his backpack, until he seen me coming. I must have had that bad boy look on my face because he froze for a second, looked at his backpack, and then started to run down the platform away from the Police approaching us. But the shit-head most definitely left his backpack there on purpose. At that moment I froze up, and my testicles went into hiding, way up into my body! It's amazing what the human brain can process in less than one second. Capt. Ahab the Arab was bead praying, seen the Police, purposely left his bag on the passenger platform full of people, with the train starting to pull into the station. So in an act of brave stupidity, I made a dive for the backpack at the same time screaming that there's a bomb. The straps in my fingers, I made another split second decision, (shouldn't I have thought before I jumped for it?) to throw the bag down onto the tracks. The platform would block us on this side from the blast and with luck; the locomotive engine would take most of the rest going up and outwards. Funny, I never even gave the other side of the tracks and platform Number 2 any thought! Well, can't be everyone’s hero! “I guess you've read all the reports about what happened.” I asked Mr. Lentz. “I mean, how was I supposed to know that it wouldn't explode? If I had known, they would have had a lot more to inspect and maybe find that guy. Not all smashed, trashed and flattened out!” Mr. Lentz laughed at that and said; “I seen the report from the technical laboratory and it seemed a little thin, so I paid them a visit. The majority of what they said about you was really ugly and they couldn't put that into the report. But they said they had to give you credit that you at least did something! Others would only stand around like sheep in the field. They said that the only thing missing was the explosive, though they would have loved to get prints off the detonator!” I laughed and said sarcastically; “they could have showed me a little gratitude and paid the € 5000 fine for throwing the bag in front of the train! Not to mention the small fine for littering, and retribution to the locomotive engineer cause he couldn't work for well over a month due to panic attacks and a psychological block every time he even thought of going back to work. Psychological Block my ass!” Lentz was now having a good laugh, and I asked him; “Mr. Lentz, let me in on the joke that I can have something to laugh at!” “Call me Walter. And I just mentally went over the eyewitness statements about that little fiasco. You stumbled and in falling knocked the backpack onto the tracks.” “Well,” I said, “that's pretty close to what happened!” I said. Walter continued; “one said you brought the backpack yourself, another states you was trying to steal it and screwed up, thereby like the other one, knocking it towards the tracks, and the best one is that you tried to throw it into the engineer’s window!” Now we were both on a roll and laughing it up, that is, till the prison guard opened the door to check out the ruckus. Since the RAF terr
orists were still residing here in their comfortable cells, I guess the guards were more alert than in other prisons. When we both had managed to calm down a little, I said; “but they never caught Capt. Ahab, and I never seen him again, or heard anything about that day from my any of my contacts.” “No,” Walter answered. “But you probably scared him enough to make him go back to the land of the crying camels!” “Don't start the jokes again Walter,” I said while already giggling again. “And they use Dromedary with one hump, Camels have two!”

  “So just what exactly blew your circuit breaker to start you on your merry little crusade against the refugees?” Walter asked. “Refugees!” I yelled at him. “Walter, every single one of those scumbags was proven to links with the radical terrorist! Their faces weren't on any posters yet, but that was only a question of somebody catching on to what the hell they were planning!” “And thankfully there are a few good Muslims that abhor such violence, and